翻译：祖白地亚
校译：许馨匀、韩桦
ZHOU Bo: As the US focuses on ‘extreme competition’ with China, conflict is just a step away
The dust from the Afghan war has yet to settle but the fallout is clear. With the ending of the US global crusade on terrorism, the prelude to President Joe Biden’s “extreme competition” with China has begun. The question is: how long will it last?
If the 20-year war in Afghanistan is a “forever war” for the United States, then its competition with China could be described as “forever competition”, because it will surely last longer. Gone are the days when China could “hide its strength and bide its time”.
The second-largest economy in the world is simply too big to hide. And it is impossible for Beijing to bide its time when Washington takes it as its primary strategic competitor.
But in the economic field, the die is cast. At the end of last year, China’s economy was 70 per cent of America’s. It is widely assumed that, by around 2030, China will overtake the US to become the world’s largest economy in terms of gross domestic product.
According to Yale professor Paul Kennedy, this will be a situation that has not existed since the 1880s, when America’s economy overtook Britain’s. For the entire 20th century, the American economy was about two to four times larger than that of any other great power.
When China emerges as the world’s largest economy, as former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd pointed out, it will be the first time since George III (1738-1820) that the world will have a non-English-speaking, non-democratic, non-Western state as its largest economy.
This will be a seismic change for Americans, who have been fed the myth since they were born that America is “exceptional” or “indispensable”. They will have to come to terms with common sense: nations rise and fall; Americans are like everyone else.
When the economy of an “authoritarian state” such as China surpasses that of the US, the influence of Western democracy will be looking at its nadir. According to Freedom House, democracy around the globe has been declining since 2006. Polls show that most Americans are dissatisfied with the state of the US.